Middle Tennessee State University

Middle Tennessee State University senior journalism major Tiffany Parker has been focused on working with local media outlets to gain expertise in her field. But during the spring semester, her academic career took a different turn after the Murfreesboro resident was recruited to work in the office of Tennessee Rep. Mike Sparks, an MTSU alumnus, during the 114th General Assembly, which concluded recently.

In his junior year at Middle Tennessee State University, Carlos Aldana Lira was awarded a Research Experience for Undergraduates, called DUB, to attend the University of Washington in Seattle to conduct computer science education research this summer.

A junior mechatronics engineering major at Middle Tennessee State University, Samuel Apigian has been awarded a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) in Dresden, Germany, this summer. Apigian was selected from more than 2,000 applicants worldwide.

Middle Tennessee State University Buchanan Transfer Fellow Jake Salter was awarded the Fulbright Canada-Mitacs Globalink Research Internship, which will take place this summer. Salter is majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics and Honors. He has a prior degree in music performance from Indiana University and he currently plays bassoon in the MTSU Symphony Orchestra.

Michael McCormick, a candidate in Middle Tennessee State University's Public History Ph.D. program, took a passion for researching his family origins to a career of multiple, major genealogy projects and most recently an internship that helped release over 100 years of vital records in Maryland. "There are legal and health reasons why a person should have rights to research vital records and family tree data, to be able to build their history," McCormick said. "(Releasing records) makes researching multiple individuals and families for broader projects in families, or history topics, much more doable."